Jackie Brown and the Blaxploitation Revival

Remembering Pam Grier, again! 

Pam Grier, this legendary name brings an image to mind instantly. Jive-talkin' dope pushers, cat-fighting go-go dancers and, of course, a kickass afro woman who can hide anything from razor blades to a small handgun. And she's been thrust back (periodically) into the mainstream with a vengeance. Her last big comeback vehicle was the 1997 blaxploitation themed crime thriller - Jackie Brown where she plays a struggling midddle-aged flight attendant caught up in a dirty money crime tangle. Jackie Brown incidentally was the third full-length feature film from Quentin Tarantino, Hollywood's favorite former video store clerk. 

Amidst a growing anti-Tarantino backlash, the director hoped to quiet critics with Jackie Brown, his adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1992 novel, Rum Punch. The unlikely star of Jackie Brown was the then-48-year-old Grier, best known for Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), Sheba, Baby (1975) and a host of other AIP classics. The question was whether Tarantino's latest disco-era muse will be able to capitalize on the same magic touch that introduced Harvey Keitel (Reservoir Dogs, 1992) to a new generation of film buffs and made John Travolta  (Pulp Fiction, 1994) filmdom's $20 million man. Fortunately, Jackie Brown lived up to the expectations grossing $74.7 million, against a budget of $12 million and earning Pam Grier several awards and nominations including a Best Actress at the Golden Globe. Her co-stars Robert Forster and Samuel L Jackson also benefited with Forster getting an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and Jackson winning a Silver Bear Best Actor award at the 1998 Berlin International Film Festival where the movie was also nominated for the Best Film Golden Bear.

Not every '70s comeback case is as lucky. Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan saw his US career finally take off with Rumble in the Bronx (1995), but subsequent films, merely re-releases of older Hong Kong films, didn't catch fire at the box office. It was only when he started making US features, like the 1998 action comedy Rush Hour with Chris Tucker, that he was able to maintain his buzz in this country. 

The difference between them may be this. The genre of film that Grier is best known for is (still) undergoing something of a revival. From the resurrected career of Rudy Ray "Dolomite" Moore to the remake of Shaft (1971), Blaxploitation icons are everywhere. Why have these films, and the people behind them, become such critical darlings? 

What many in the mainstream press are finally picking up on has been known to film scholars and students for at least the last decade. These films are among the most important and best documented examples of ethnographic filmmaking available. They were, for the most part, produced by black filmmakers, with black casts and crews, for a black audience, much like early "race" films of the teens and twenties that have become required viewing in film history classes. 

As such, they present a view of 1970s America from a black, urban perspective, something missing from even the best intentioned, Norman Jewison directed mystery drama  In the Heat of the Night (1967) or Stanley Kramer's comedy drama Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) - both starring Sidney Poitier or other racially tinged, socially conscious films of the previous decade. 

It was almost a comically distorted view to be sure, a world of pimps in velvet suits and kung-fu fighting call girls, but it addressed issues like social and economic injustice from both within and without the community. "The Man," specifically the crooked white cop or politician, was the least of the problems facing those inhabiting the world of Blaxploitation features. More often than not, much as it might hurt some egos, "whitey" was only a passing presence in the hood, a cop on the take or a mafia figure out for a cut of the action, not a central part of urban inner-city life. 

Ironically, most of the major blaxploitation films people remember today were second generation films with a Hollywood pedigree. Films like Shaft and even Pam Grier's biggest hits were signaling the death of the independent black cinema of the '70s through assimilation. With Jackie Brown, and later, the new Shaft (2000), or Robert Downey Jr's risky role in Tropic Thunder (2008), filmmakers have been hopping on the same bandwagon, some would say honoring, others would say harvesting, the morally ambiguous feel and flavor of this genre. The most notable examples have been Pootie Tang (2001), the very funny Undercover Brother (2002) starring Eddie Griffin and Black Dynamite (2009) starring Michael Jai White besides the more recent Taraji P Henson and Danny Glover starrer Proud Mary (2018) and Superfly (2018)

With a big budget and even bigger stars, it may be, as fellow pop culture connoisseur (and, some would say, washed-up hack) Bono would say, "even better than the real thing". Long live the Blaxploitation revival! 

P.S. Remember to checkout Brown Sugar, a reliable Netflix-style VOD streaming service that claims to offer the “biggest collection of the baddest movies” in the Blaxploitation genre on the internet. Pam Grier, now 69 is coincidentally the Ambassador of the Brown Sugar Network! 

This post originally appeared in the Axiom magazine. It's been updated and revised to make it more relevant to current audiences.

A Simple Plan (1998)

Sometimes Good People indeed do very bad things !

Sam Raimi's "A Simple Plan" based on the novel of the same name by Scott Smith (who also wrote the screenplay) is not a heartwarming movie. It's tragedy, plain and simple - a antidote for sickly-sweet films from the 90s like the highly unlikely "You've Got Mail," which tend to hopelessly romanticize the world we live in. Sure, folks may be nice on the surface; they may even be genuinely good people at heart. But given enough temptation, few of them will fare any better than Eve or Pandora. 

They say that money is the root of all evil, and that's the starting point for this tale of two brothers, Hank and Jacob Mitchell, and Jake's pal Lou. The three men discover over four million dollars in cash in a duffel bag aboard a downed plane. The pilot is dead, the plane is buried under the snow, and apparently no one knows it's there. Jacob and Lou, who are both a little dim, want to keep the money, but Hank, the more reasonable and thoughtful one, thinks it should go to the police. The compromise: Hank keeps the money until the plane is discovered and if there's no mention of it at that point, they split it up and leave town. If someone comes looking for it, he burns it all. It's the only deal he'll agree to, and it is, apparently, a simple plan. 

The film's title is, of course, ironic, in that as things go progressively wrong, each new plan Hank devises (with the help of his increasingly greed-blinded wife) only leads to escalating disaster. The money, which everyone had seen as the key to happiness, brings nothing but grief, and if there's any moral to the film, it's the age-old "money can't buy happiness/love/etc." But, while the concept isn't new, the way the plot develops is an excellent take on the classic suspense flick, with a firm nod to Hitchcock and a debt to more mature works like "Fargo." 

Both as a thriller, and as an exploration into human nature, "A Simple Plan" is a captivating success. The oft-maligned Billy Bob Thornton is not only tolerable as Jacob Mitchell, he's positively endearing. Although he's far from an angel, his innocence and naivete; bring the audience to his side, leaving him as the most sympathetic, and ultimately, most tragic character of the lot. Bill Paxton, as Hank, turns in a surprisingly riveting performance as well, proving his ability to be the focus of a film, as opposed to the usual accessory. In the end, it's through Hank that we see the price people can pay for their folly. 

In one of the most interesting parallels, Hank and his wife (Bridgette Fonda), become the modern-day equivalent of Shakespeare's tragic couple, the Macbeths. Hank's wife is increasingly obsessed with the idea of the money, driving her husband to worse and worse deeds as the stakes get higher. Hank follows her instructions, even when his better side advises him against it. Ultimately, there is just as much blood on her hands as his. Perhaps Lady Mitchell will be trying to scrub herself clean, like her classic counterpart, in the aftermath of "A Simple Plan." 

It's not much of a stretch. What's truly clear in the aftermath is that it really is the simple things in life that matter -love, friendship, trust, compassion - and no amount of wealth is worth throwing them away for. Then again, you don't know what you've got until it's gone. Maybe this will make you think twice. Doug Levy

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The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

A Stellar Waste of a Talented Cast

There are so many problems with the Talented Mr Ripley - it is hard to know where to begin. Everything that director Anthony Minghella did right in The English Patient (1996) he managed to undo in this film.The running time of the English Patient was just around three hours and, in that time, Minghella wove a tapestry of complex characters doomed by circumstance. In Ripley he never gets to the point. 

What drives Tom Ripley? is he just a sociopath for any reason? is Minghella trying to show us how a simple lie can force the hand of the purveyor? All are interesting questions that receive nary an explanation, but by far the most interesting question is why waste an incredibly talented cast in such a disjointed film? 

With the exception of Jude Law’s performance, the cast is utterly wasted in totally undeveloped characters who just pass time on the screen - pass time indeed at a running time of just about two and a half hours. The poor pacing of the film caused it to drag more and more, making it seem as though the film would never end... and when it did there was no real resolution and, for lack of a better phrase, no point. 

Mr. Ripley was, without a doubt, the largest waste of a cast I have ever seen, squandering the abilities of such wonderful actors as Philip Seymour Hoffman, Cate Blanchet, Gwyneth Paltrow, James Rebhorn and Philip Baker Hall, but the largest contribution to the worthlessness of the film was Matt Damon’s performance as Ripley. With no character development he had nothing to do at all except look senseless. 

The subplot of the characters homosexuality was largely untouched (with the exception of a few fleeting glances) and the character’s inability to make decisions about what is affecting his life is totally ignored. It is unfortunate that the film does not live up to the spectacular source material (novel by Patricia Highsmith) or the first film version (1964’s plein soleil or purple noon), but more than anything else, the true tragedy is the time and energy wasted on such a mediocre, untalented and pointless film. Anderson TW

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Dværgen - The Sinful Dwarf (1973)

Jake Speed revisit's the demented sexploitation English flick from 70s Denmark!

"What was the terrifying secret of the attic?" The Sinful Dwarf's tagline asks in a panic. Oddly, the secret of the attic isn't a secret at all: an ex-nightclub singer and a not-very-charismatic midget who's fond of toys own a London boarding house that's actually a front for a sort of bordello in the attic. Only the women aren't prostitutes; they're captives. On of them receives a steady supply of heroin but the other three are kept from escaping only by a curious sort of languid docility -Zorben the Dwarf is a far-from-fastidious jailer and yet not once is a break made for the attic door he frequently leaves open and unattended.  

A pair of likable newlyweds comes to stay at the boarding house while the husband, an aspiring writer, looks for a job. The wife claims to hear noises from the attic and comments about the parade of people marching in and out of it all day, but the husband dismisses her concerns as childish. When he's called out of town for an interview she goes to the attic to find out what's going on - foolish girl - and is promptly taken captive. 

The nightclub singer and her impish sidekick forge a "Dear John" letter for the husband and when he returns they tell him his wife left him. Eventually, though, the husband learns about Zorben and the singer's drug connection and he puts two and two together. A quick call to the cops lowers the boom on the villainous duo. Husband and wife reunite, through the latter - having had to turn an unconsensual trick during her stay in the attic - is substantially worse for wear. Isn't it funny how the really screwed up movies all have happy endings? 

It's a shame this movie's so screwed up because otherwise, it's not that bad. The title sequence kicks ass, the newlywed couple is genuinely sympathetic, the nightclub singer and the sinful dwarf inspire loathing in a manner appropriate for horror movie antagonists. The director must have just gotten through a unit on match-cuts in his intro-to-film class, because The Sinful Dwarf sports a lot of them, and some of them are pretty clever. When the husband overhears the dwarf harassing his dealer for more goodies, for instance, the husband looks at a toy police car and there's a cut to a radio-car beacon barreling down the road - a match used to externalize the husband's line of thought. All right, so it ain't the shot through the Copa Cabana's skylight, but it does reflect a formal vocabulary much broader than is generally the case with 60s and 70s nudie movies.*

There are also some passable cross-cuts between the nightclub singer's act (she performs pathetically for a drunken, solitary friend to bring back the good ole days) and the screams of one of the attic-dwellers, and the theme of the dwarf's toys is played pretty well throughout. 

This would make for a good movie (tolerably interesting, anyway) if it weren't for the attic sequences themselves, which, through phony as hell, are incredibly unpleasant to watch. Part of the reason these sequences are so unnerving is that most of the sex scenes are set in the attic (it is a nudie, aftter all) so that the lingering camera gives the impression that rape, torture, drug addiction and captivity are supposed to be sexually exciting. Not that they aren't to some, but if the movie meant to imply this, it might as well have made the dwarf the good guy. On the other hand, if The Sinful Dwarf is so disturbing and irredeemable, I wonder why I can't seem to stop talking about it...

*More in keeping with the genre is the movie's handling of the wife's decision to call the police earlier on -- done by having her say out loud, to herself, "I've got to call the police; I've got to call them right now." Talk about applying the hint with a sledgehammer. 

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